


A Dream of Spring and Frost

by orphan_account



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Dreams, Ficlet, Gen, Hobbits, Male Protagonist, POV Male Character, POV Third Person, Past Tense, Wordcount: 100-1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-04
Updated: 2005-05-04
Packaged: 2017-10-09 07:15:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/84426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Bring-your-own-subtext Sam/Frodo.</p>
    </blockquote>





	A Dream of Spring and Frost

**Author's Note:**

> Bring-your-own-subtext Sam/Frodo.

"I dreamt we were back home, sir."

Sam's breath puffed warm against Frodo's ear, and it was so cold, and Frodo turned his head so the breath fell on his cheek, for his cheek needed warming too. Sam threw one leg over Frodo's as if he knew, and pulled him even closer in his embrace as they lay beneath the questionable shelter of two rocks, propped together by chance like a half-finished stone tent. "It was spring, in my dream," he continued, "and though the sun was hot on one cheek a sharp wind blew on the other. The flowers didn't know whether to wilt or freeze." He paused. "I'm not sure I should talk of it," he added shyly.

"No, please, Sam, go on." Frodo didn't remember his own dreams these days. He didn't know whether to be happy or sad for it.

"Well... I was anxious as anything about the flowers, you see, not to mention the crops, so I went to my Gaffer to ask his advice. Dreams are funny and it so happens the Gaffer had turned into Mr. Gandalf, but even so he had advice for me. He said I had to set fire to the gardens, and when they had all burned up everything would grow as it should and the rain and warmer weather would come and set the flowers bloomin'.

"And it seemed horribly wrong to me, but Mr. Gandalf's wiser than Samwise Gamgee, so I set about it. I built rock walls around the Bag End garden so's the fire wouldn't spread, and I got some oil to help it along, just a bit, and I sprayed it around and I got out my tinderbox and a piece of cloth..." Here Sam paused, breathing quietly, one hand lost somehow in Frodo's curls.

Frodo turned his head, and caught Sam thoughtfully gazing into some dreamscape of things Frodo could scarcely remember. The moisture from his breath on Frodo's cheek was beginning to cool, and a shiver passed involuntarily through his body. That seemed to startle Sam out of his reverie, and he looked up sharply. Frodo hushed his worried words with a finger on his own lips, and said, "What happened then, Sam?"

"Oh... I couldn't do it, sir." Sam stroked Frodo's arms up and down, trying to warm him. "I couldn't kill all those flowers, seeing as how they were struggling to live so. I swore then I'd tend to them, no matter how they drooped, and save them all if I could. So I put away my tinderbox and took down the rock walls and washed the oil off where I could, and then set about to healing the flowers.

"I worked as hard as I could, and I even discovered that if I blew on a flower, it would lose the frost-touch, so I went around the garden and I blew on everything that was sufferin' from the cold. Silly dream!" Sam laughed at himself, looking away in embarrassment. "Ah, but it worked. In the end it worked, sir; and the flowers bloomed, and they didn't need no burning up and starting anew to do it."

A sob struggled out of Frodo's throat, and that released his tears. He took Sam's head between his hands and kissed his brow.

And Sam wrapped his arms around him again and let him cry, even as the moisture seeped through the shoulder of his shirt, breathing softly on Frodo's frost-bitten ear.


End file.
